


where the bruises don't show

by sharkie



Series: The Broad Walls [11]
Category: Babylon (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Casual misogyny, F/M, Hate Sex, OR IS IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:45:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8442862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkie/pseuds/sharkie
Summary: It's all the same, on the surface.





	1. Chapter 1

Lights dim, heels kicked aside, hands frantic. Jesus. One innocent kiss for morale’s sake led here in a remarkable amount of time, what must be a new record in this building. There are perfectly good chairs in the office and a perfectly good office chair, but a perfectly disastrous relationship should rightfully be consummated up against the pointy corner of a desk.

She’s indulging in the store brand junk food of illicit sex, too - too cheap to be shameful. They’re following an overplayed script of disaster, the way she whines an obligatory “but your wife…” and his answering shushes, the huff of his deep laughter against her cheek and she laughs back like betrayal is an inside joke. It’s a mistake she’s made elsewhere in the past, it’s not where she wanted them to be when they first met, but here she is. Here they are. Any whisper of her conscience is drowned by the sound they both make when she pulls out his cock and wraps a hand around him.

Finn comes on the third stroke.

“Sorry. It’s...been a while,” he pants. Bites his lip. He drinks in her body, head to toe, planting a hand on the desk to keep his balance. “And you’re...well. It’s like breaking Lent with a bacchanal in a chocolate fountain.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is.”

Liz licks her index finger clean, holding his gaze. Then she wipes the rest of her hand with a tissue and nonchalantly hands him the box. The assertion of power isn't lost on him - he wipes himself with a moan that’s bordering on theatrical, and pauses, as if he’s contemplating sticking the used tissue somewhere awful. He tosses it into the trash instead.

She’s pressed against her desk before she can properly process his attitude. His palms are sweaty against her inner thighs, lips not venturing below her collarbone. When he takes her hand in his and murmurs, “Show me how you like it,” she’s almost convinced that he’s ceded control. Almost.

It must’ve been a hell of a dry spell: he fumbles at first, muttering apologies until she basically holds his wrist in place and fucks herself on his fingers. But those fingers are long and dexterous, and he follows instructions well; and she swears that he smiles, nearly sleaze-free, as she comes with an exaggerated cry. She can believe that the surprised noise that escapes him is genuine.

“Good night,” Liz pants, running a hand through her hair.

“Good night,” Finn says, voice rough.

His eyes rove over the expanse of her office the way they’d roamed her body, and he exits.

It seems like a perfect arrangement. It can't last.

“Don’t stay too late tonight, will you?” Liz says the next evening, voice dripping with artificial concern before it sharpens into scathing. “I'm sure your wife is fucking everyone in your sad little village.”

“Thanks.” Finn’s smirk deepens - she hadn’t known that was possible on a human face. “She’s fictional, so…”

Liz feels her eyes widen and, yeah, come to think of it, she’d been surprised that anyone would date Finn, much less live with him, much-much less marry him. She’d noticed that he didn’t wear a wedding ring, but she’d assumed that was part of his marital strife.

“That figures,” she spits, after a regrettably long pause.

Finn’s smirk remains as he turns and walks away. God, how she hates these theoretically attainable, moderately successful, passably sane men and their _fucking egos._

“Good night!” she calls.

“Good night!” The barely suppressed anger in his voice reminds her that she's the overall victor today, almost renews and solidifies his role as her only major vice.

Almost.

She calls Granger later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only relationship. Surprise!


	2. Chapter 2

“Is chewing gum really more exciting than me?” Liz questions in a deceptively soft voice, wrapping his tie around her wrist and letting it unfurl.

No. No, of fucking course it isn’t. But Finn’s irreverence must be groundbreaking, more groundbreaking than her transparency bollocks. Probably no man has ever insinuated they could possibly care about anything besides pleasing her, even when she’s warm and squirming in their hands. She won’t kiss him unless he spits out his gum. He won’t spit out his gum unless it lands on her.

So, Finn is groping his ‘boss’ in a room of ambiguous purpose for the third time this week. And he fucking hates his boss, and he fucking loves following workplace protocol, e.g., no groping, anywhere. But the world had already tilted sharply with Liz's employment; he may as well push it upside-down.

She tosses her hair back, and...is that a new mouth-sized bruise at the base of her neck?

“Someone’s been busy,” Finn murmurs, breath hot against her ear, fingertips skimming over the hickey. “First your flurry of emails, then this. Or the other way round.”

He covers her mouth with his other hand when she begins to spout a bullshit explanation.

“I don't care,” he croons.

Their gazes lock. Liz slowly drags her tongue over his skin, drawing circles with the tip then flattening for broad strokes around his palm. He presses harder. A flash of her eyes - and she catches the flesh of his ring finger between her teeth and _bites_.

“Jesus!” Finn yanks his hand away, the minor pain smarting less than the sudden surge of desire.

Liz uses the momentary distraction to pull him closer, grinding against his leg and urging his touch where she wants it. She’s pinned against a wall, a strong hand on her neck and an unpleasant implication hanging in the air, and she’s _still_ fighting to establish dominance or something. Shit. They’d probably be friends if she was a guy.

Before he knows it, his cock is out and she spits into her hand. Oh, hell. He’d expected her to carry around a purse-friendly container of strawberry-flavoured lube. The sound and sight is genuinely, inexplicably arousing and he gapes for a second, mouth dry.

“Sssh.” She presses a finger to his lips, withdraws it in case he bites her.

“I wasn’t talking,” he protests.

“Stop thinking.” Yeah, right. “You're bad at it.”

Her palm is slick on him and her lips are at the hollow of his throat. They’ll leave a mark, pale pink and easy to wipe off, where the bruise on her neck is black and blue and she’ll bear it until the end of the week. He nearly comes from dwelling on the juxtaposition alone, Jesus, he's a slut for literary devices, but he holds on, pawing at the bottom of her breasts with both hands, trying to squeeze her nipples through her bra. ( _Nipple_ , he thinks vindictively, _nipple nipple nipple_.) 

“I wish there was a way to do this without remembering that you're you,” Liz says, punctuating the statement with a heavy sigh. 

Her thumb gathers the precome oozing from his slit, smears it over the head of his cock in languid strokes as she jerks him faster. She twists her wrist, his knees buckle, and it’s so good, little compensation for her existence but blissfully numbing -

The stroking ends. All stroking. Finn watches, dazed, as she tucks him back in, zips him up, and pats his cock through his trousers before side-stepping away from the wall.

“Have fun with that,” she chirps.  

Liz’s preening means it's effortless to firmly grasp her by the shoulders. Her hand goes to his arse, his hand goes to hers, and he plants an open-mouthed kiss on her lips, a kiss she instinctively returns - allowing him to shove his gum into her mouth and quickly guide her lips to close.

He _just_ dodges her spitting in his direction. She repeatedly scrapes her tongue with the back of one hand, muttering curses between gagging noises.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Finn chides. “Your tongue has spent much more time in my mouth than that piece of gum.” He pauses, weighs his options. ”And I’ve known that piece longer.”

It’s a lie, but Liz’s reaction is hilarious: no more than a twitch of her eye initially, then her entire face contorts in disgust. She grinds her kneecap against his erection - fuck, that’s right, he _had_ been close - gives it a last, slow stroke, and saunters out of the room, leaving him panting in her wake.

Worth it.

Hours later, Finn exits a room on the top floor. He steps out just in time to see Richard and Liz down the hallway, beaming at each other, Richard’s hand on Liz’s hip, and _ah,_ the pieces click into place. The proverbial puzzle is glued and framed in his mind. Confirming his suspicion is better than any fucking orgasm.

Liz barely looks at Finn as they’re about to meet in the middle of the hallway. As much as they hate each other, he can’t help feeling particularly insulted by her snub. Richard had his hand on her hip, but she had her hand on Finn’s cock. Today, at least. This morning. Surely that warrants a passing glare.

“You look tired,” Finn says.

“You’ve got sperm on your lapel,” she fires back.

It takes him five minutes to realise that he wasn’t even wearing a jacket.


	3. Chapter 3

Heading to Finn’s office is like crawling into a last ditch and possibly dying there. But Richard still hasn’t spoken to Liz since yesterday’s ultimatum - or she isn’t talking to him, or both, whatever. Either way, access-wise, Finn’s dick is limited edition. It should be put to decent use before she cuts it off and mounts it in the marginally less fun sense.

Inside, Finn is reading. The book has to be supported by his lap and the edge of his desk, because one hand is clutching two pens for no apparent reason, holding them close to a third pen tucked behind his ear. Interest sparks bright in his eyes before he lowers his gaze again.

Liz currently has two sexual prospects in London. This is, objectively, the better one.

“Why are you here?” he asks, flipping the page. “Is your other toy out of juice?”

Ugh.

“Yes, in fact, my usual partner is...unavailable. He doesn’t work here and he’s real,” she adds, when he raises both eyebrows.

His office is small enough to cross in one and a half strides. Liz stops behind Finn’s (cluttered, musty, disgusting) desk, beside his chair. Her skirt rides up - really, not much - as she perches on the edge of the desk. He side-eyes the new bit of exposed thigh, then pretends to ignore her in favour of his book.

“I can prove it,” she offers matter-of-factly, “in case your skepticism interferes with your performance.”

“What’s his job?” Finn flips another page. “Head of sanitation?”

“Sex doctor, actually. I’ve only been fucking around with you to gather data. By the way, your come is waterier than average and you finish five minutes faster than most men in your age group.”

He chuckles darkly, putting his book away. “I don’t think any of that is true.”

“Why are you so sure?” Liz's question ends with a lilting laugh and a cruel smile. “Have you already conducted your own study?”

“It’s cute that you want my level of insecurity to match yours.” Finn finally swivels to face her, far, far too smug for a man who’s visibly carrying three pens. Although she _is_ propositioning him at the same time, so, fool her twice. “You need me to scratch an itch. I understand,” he continues, speaking over her immediate objection. “It’s part of your daily self-care routine. Multivitamin, protein shake, earth-shattering orgasm - ”

“I can handle that myself,” Liz snaps. “Better than any of you.”

Finn taps his sickeningly wide smirk with his pen. “So there’s more than two of us.”

“Men in general.”

“Why are you so sure? Have you fucked all of them?”

Liz huffs and rolls her eyes, a safely dismissive response, and leans in. He mirrors her, clearly expecting physical contact - instead, she bites the tip of the stupid pen tucked behind his ear. She lifts the pen, holds it in her mouth like it’s a cigarette, and spits it out onto his desk.

With anyone else, that’d be utterly ridiculous. But he’s staring at her as if she’s done something weird yet disturbingly hot, such as cramming her entire fist into her mouth.

“There,” she says. She plucks the remaining pens from his fingers and tosses them aside. “Now you look bearable.”

Disarming - dispenning? - him hits an instant sex switch. They rearrange themselves in a rush with urgent hands and threats murmured like sweet nothings and wind up with Liz at the edge of his chair, skirt hiked up to her waist, Finn on his knees with his hands braced on her calves and his head bracketed by her bare thighs.

“Open your mouth,” Liz instructs in a bored voice, scooting forward. “Doesn’t have to be very wide.” Scowling, Finn complies. Her index finger pushes past his lips, lands on his tongue and, fucking hell, he _sucks_ without prompting, when she really just wanted to be absolutely sure he couldn’t repeat the thing with the gum.

His mouth is honestly one of the worst abominations in the world whenever it isn’t on hers or elsewhere on her body, occasionally even then. But watching him lick and roll lollipops has given her ideas. It’s the only time she’s had a positive expectation about him.

It’s yet another time she’s been right.

“Most of that wetness isn’t for you,” she says, believability somewhat dampened by how she has to gulp heavily immediately afterwards, God, he kisses her cunt better than anyone’s ever kissed her lips. “It’s from rereading my Metwork notes. Progress is sexy. You might not have heard from your town crier yet.”

He flips her off while noisily lapping a sloppy stripe up her slit, sticking his prone finger as far towards her as possible. Classy. She lowers her head, yanks his hand to her mouth, and sucks his finger. The startled sound he makes reverberates to her core, his nose brushing her clit - she moans in her own surprise, spurring him on. Flicking out the tip of her tongue triggers the same chain of reactions.

“Yeah, there,” she gasps. Pauses. “And all the other places, too.”

Liz swears she can feel Finn smirk against her, and the thought of _that_ expression in _that_ area should be repulsive, but she congratulates herself on finding a purpose for his face that doesn’t involve seeing or punching it.

“I’m gonna leave an ass mark on your chair,” she pants. What is she supposed to say while his mouth is busy wrecking her? It’s like playing tennis with a tree.

It soon becomes clear that words are failing her, so she sticks to whines. The irony sucks nearly as hard as he does on her clit and on the same scale of pain-pleasure: work and Metwork and Richard (and _Richard)_ are purged from her mind by Finn’s clever, restless tongue, Finn’s pace, Finn’s hands-on effort. His finger slips into her, crooks at an astonishing angle, and, fuck, another finger and she's stuffed with him.

Giving ground isn’t surrender, or so she thinks - it’s a biological reaction, she could (probably) still fucking do it better than him - but it affirms Finn’s skill, which is almost as bad. Liz comes with an involuntary high-pitched keen staggered over several seconds, with pulses of colour flashing behind her eyelids...and with the memory of his taunts in the dark at the end of her first day, a drop of _ohgodwhathaveIdone_ in the waves of pleasurable relief.

Gasping, she sags into the chair, sweat-soaked and flushed. Finn wipes his mouth twice, his hum bordering on contented; he realises the missed opportunity and licks the back of his hand with too much tongue, gazing up at her through fluttering eyelashes. It’s so cartoonishly unattractive that she wants to fuck him into the floor.

Liz plants a heel on his shoulder and presses down lightly.

“You look good there,” she says. “Natural.”

“Working diligently while you babble semi-coherent bullshit and moan over my effective technique?” Finn massages her ankle just hard enough to cause discomfort, his smile broad and contemptuous. “I’ve had practice.”

Her heel drops from his shoulder, grazing his cheek. “Get up.”

“Are you trying to order me around in my own office?”

“A, _I can do that_ , because I'm your boss.” Liz rolls the chair closer, until Finn is forced to tilt his head further upwards to maintain his glare. “B, if you know a way for me to suck you off while I'm sitting here and you're kneeling on the floor, please share it.”

Evidently, he doesn’t. And he seems to think a full filing cabinet is the best place to lean while receiving a blowjob, though she did just come loud and hard on his ancient office chair, so she probably can’t judge.

Liz scribbles a mental note to buy mouthwash later as she stretches her lips over his cockhead and slurps him deep, her hand pumping what she can’t cover. Ah, that’s the type of nonstop groaning she likes to hear from him. Any potential degradation is mitigated by how she's shutting him up while she’s the one with his dick crammed in her mouth...or, occupying her mouth with considerable room left over. He’s not _that_ big.

Finn is falling to pieces in her hands, twitching helplessly as she swirls her tongue, grunting between harsh breaths. She fondles his balls roughly, and his head thuds against the cabinet - the impact is loud, like, bump-on-the-back-of-his-head loud, but his following moan isn’t exactly pained. (Putting them in her mouth is out of the question, she's not getting fucking talc poisoning.) 

“I - I’m - ” he stammers. His head thuds against the cabinet again, harder this time, and she hears a faint “oh my God”. Despite the warning signs, she’s _surprised_ when he spurts in her mouth - he’s shaking and swearing and holding her head in place with fingers tight in her hair, yet there’s a marked absence of bucking wildly or shoving her forward. The experience feels incomplete.

“I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to come directly down your throat or onto your face,” Finn explains, as soon as he’s caught his breath.

“And you couldn’t hold back?” Liz slaps his cock as she stands; the sharp cry he utters is music to her ears. “That’s cute.”

Clothes are adjusted, hair is smoothed. Her panties are retrieved from where they were thrown distressingly close to a mug half-full with coagulated coffee. Finn finishes buttoning his trousers and opens his mouth, undoubtedly to spout some lewd remark; her preemptive kiss is really closer to violently tongue-fucking him with traces of himself, sweat and pre-come and come and shame.

“How do you like the bitter taste of despair, also known as the flavour of your dick?”

A contemplative pause, and Finn responds by lifting an eyebrow as he swipes his tongue around his lips, followed by smacking them emphatically. Liz sighs and double-checks that her skirt is straightened. When she looks again, his posture has regressed into nonchalance that’s so potent, it must be fake.

“See you tomorrow?” he asks. Or, rather, suggests hopefully.

“Probably not.” Liz opens the door, throwing him an impassive glance over her shoulder. “The other guy is free later.”

Finn’s expression is more picture-perfect than anything she's Instagrammed in the past year.


	4. Chapter 4

“You,” Liz spits; incongruously, opening her door wider.

“Me,” Finn concurs, leaning on the one arm he’s rested against her door frame.

“How did you get past the guard?” she demands. 

Finn flashes his Scotland Yard lanyard and a smug grin. “I told him I wanted to check on you.”

“If you're sore over yesterday -”

“I'm not here to talk about work.”

Liz huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “So you’ve decided to cut out the middleman and end me with your bare hands?”

“I’m always willing to strangle you, if you insist. Erotically or otherwise. Speaking of which...”

Finn moves to step inside, but his entrance is blocked by Liz.

“I don't want you here,” she says, so quiet and firm that even he knows it’s non-negotiable.

He rolls his eyes and begins to retrieve a piece of gum from his pocket. “Fine.”

“I want you somewhere else.” The look shared between them is the most accurate communication they’ve ever had.

He won’t remember much about the journey later, just the tips of Liz’s hair brushing his face, Liz’s ankle bumping his shoe, Liz’s breath on his neck in heavy exhalations. But they avoid touching or conversation beyond curt directions. The few glances he catches are loaded with hate and a hurt he can’t decipher. Suspiciously, she’s wearing work clothes - it figures that he couldn’t even see her while she was vulnerable.

It’d be an interesting twist if she was spotted entering a cheap hotel with a new man and leaving alone hours later, even more if Finn was identified. Risky, but he's an expert, he could spin it to his advantage:  _Yes, we’ve been sleeping together, responsibly and off the clock. I don’t know anything about Liz’s other partners, nor should I._ And, with a feigned sadness he’d ‘struggle’ to ‘suppress’,  _We have a totally casual relationship. She was very clear about that._

Never mind the fact that he’s never been a good liar.

The door has scarcely rattled shut when he grabs Liz - or is grabbed by Liz, it’s difficult to tell - and kisses her messily, only pausing to push her trenchcoat off her shoulders. She’s on the bed and he’s on top of her before she can blink. She tolerates a few seconds of blind grinding, then rolls them over, straddling him while she unbuttons his shirt. Hands run down his chest, down his stomach and, fuck, she’s sucking a nipple into her mouth, that was _not_ something he needed to know he liked. 

Finn reverses their positions, pulling his shirt off in the process, and she goes with her legs tangled with his. Shoes are removed frantically; her blouse lands on the floor, followed by their trousers. He keeps discovering parts of her and learning they’re perfect. Even the stares and moans he extracts are unbearably beautiful. Ugliness has to be buried somewhere - it has to be tucked into the persona, beneath the surface idealism. And she’s proven him right, repeatedly. He reasons that he continues searching because he’s been trained to find thorough answers.

Yesterday’s anger resurfaces at her scoffing at his struggle to unclasp her bra. It vanishes once her breasts are firmly in his hands, against his mouth, and he’s so hard he sees black spots at the edge of his vision.

Liz swats him away. “On your stomach,” she commands. Weird, but okay. She pulls down his briefs in one harsh tug, lies flush against him with her peaked nipples brushing his back, her cotton panties the only -

“ _What the fuck?!”_ Finn fists the sheets, jerking in place.

She’s humping his arse. Jesus Christ. _Jesus fucking Christ_. She’s going at him like she intends to come this way, holy fuck. The underside of his cock rubs against the mattress with each increasingly vigorous thrust, but it’s unsatisfying compared to the pressure of her hand or the heat of her mouth and -

“I need more,” he croaks.

“I needed you to _stop_ ,” Liz snarls, and shoves his face into the pillow. His brain is melting. This isn’t even sex yet, technically, but he's rutting lightly against the mattress as she grinds her clit against him; he tries not to succumb to the urge to take himself in hand, desperately needing her to grant the first electric touch. Her voice becomes near-incomprehensible between ragged breaths, between clenched teeth. “You’re such a fucking whore.”

His chuckle is too weak to be convincing. “Takes one to know one.”

“Yeah,” she smacks his arse, “and I do.”  

Flipping her over, he tugs her soaked panties down with a snarl of his own, and she hooks her legs around him, open and wet and wanting. Pushing into her has them both shuddering uncontrollably, clawing at each other as she tightens around him like a slick vice. His hips stutter against hers, their lips meet in a mutual moan, and he has to think about the applause at the start of her TED Talk to calm down. Liz-related premature gloating and Liz-related premature ejaculation in the span of slightly over 24 hours would be catastrophic for his self-esteem for approximately, oh, forever.

She’s shortsighted, naive, and stupid. But her gaze sears as if she can see every bad thing he’s ever done, every mistake, every insecurity. Thrusting into her does nothing to dispel the sensation, not the second time, not the third; it's a secondary objective, making her look away without resorting to verbal taunts. God, she's scorching hot inside, writhing beneath him, and he's losing every piece of his goddamn mind, it's headed south and she'll wring it out of him.

“Liz,” he gasps, soft enough to be a whisper instead of a hiss. She stiffens. It's too late to retract it. “Liz,” he repeats, so it seems more deliberate. She tenses whenever he says it, and that feels fucking amazing, and he does it again and again and again until she silences him, briefly, by pushing his head down with one hand and latching her lips onto his.

He hits a spot that makes Liz arch her back, aims to do it again to hear her mewl louder, to see her lips part and stay agape. Eyes squeezed shut, she turns her head to the side and mouths something. Something. One or two syllables, he doesn’t know, it could be a name, whose name, at the height of their frenzied fucking he can’t summon the mental energy to figure it out but he still tries. Her eyes are on him again. Finn doesn’t know, he doesn’t _know_ -

It takes all of his willpower to tuck his head into the crook of Liz’s neck and moan, “ _Sarah_.”

The sound that escapes Liz isn’t a word.

This time, the way she tenses _destroys_ him and he almost sobs as he comes, it’s incredible, and unbelievably, miraculously, she’s following with a wail muffled into his skin. He groans her name into her shoulder, low and unintelligible, biting down to stifle his shout.

The air reeks of sex. Erratic thrusts become shallow, slow to a reluctant stop. Breathing steadies. ‘Sarah’ was uttered dispassionately, especially compared to how he said Liz’s name. But she was probably too sex-addled to pay attention to the details.

Or not. Five minutes later, they’re staring at the ceiling. Liz has claimed most of the blanket; the analogy is too easy, so neither of them bother.

“I’m absolutely sure you don’t have a wife,” she says.

“It could’ve been someone else,” Finn reasons. “Dead wife, dead husband, insanely powerful and selectively wrathful significant other…”

“Dead goat.”

“Nice, Liz.” Finn swallows heavily, wavering his voice until it’s mockingly tearful. “What if that was special for me, because it was the first time...since...”

“Special?” Liz laughs as she sits upright. Her nipples are still pebbled, and he genuinely wants to cry, he fucking hates her, and the world is beautiful. “Here?”

“Maybe this is where I met them.”

Liz makes a show of eyeing the whole room, then shrugs. “In that case, I’d say you’re better off now.”

He laughs, amused - and stops abruptly. The familiar-looking bruise on her neck seems recent. Perhaps she wasn’t lying about the other guy, after all. So. Their head of PR is reckless, irresponsible, and greedy even in sex, an intellect-sapping corporate succubus. Finn has to say something - anything - to protect himself. On behalf of London.

“Can you be quiet for the next forty-five minutes?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” For someone with wild hair and a tangible literal afterglow, she sounds monumentally unimpressed. “Can you stay awake for forty-five minutes?”

He throws the blanket off them. “Shut up and find out.”

They mostly fuck in positions where they don’t have to look at each other. Eye contact is rare but intense. When they speak, it's short and unemotional, bereft of encouragement or insults. Finn understands. He’s the random seedy motel in Liz’s life, the dirty place she goes to air the dark parts she denies about herself. Except, unlike any establishment, he’s _actively tried to ruin her_. He’s like the Overlook Hotel, but third-rate and ambulatory.

The name thing doesn’t happen again.

Around an hour after they began, Finn rolls onto his side with a contended sigh, pleasantly sore. Liz lies at the other end of the bed, barely within reach, hair swept so that her nape is exposed to him. He’s dimly aware that he’d like to nuzzle there, suck hickeys of his own into her flesh, and wonders how he can do that from a distance.

“Off the record - ” he pauses to wet his lips, “ - what’s the best sex you’ve had this year?”

“The year’s not over yet,” she answers flatly. 

“The year so far, then.” Finn reaches out to stroke a fingertip around her back, tracing imaginary lines connecting her freckles. “Maybe you need it narrowed down. Which man?”

That makes her shift to glare at him over her shoulder. “Finn, for the final fucking time, I had a purely professional relationship with Richard  -”

“I didn’t mention him,” Finn says, syrupy tone instantly frosted to icy. The mattress shakes from the force of Liz's exasperated sigh, and she settles back onto her side. A heartbeat later, Finn also relaxes into the mattress - using the movement to scoot closer. “All right, I suppose that strikes him off the list.”

“Yes,” she snaps, “it does.”

He places his hand on her hipbone, skims it up her side and is rewarded with a shiver. “Is it your ex?”

Liz’s silence is more telling than any fucking monologue she’s delivered this month. Finn pops his head up again, exuberant beyond belief, and exuberant that she can’t see exactly how exuberant he is.

“Is it me?”

He’s startled when she rolls over to face him; now her pose mirrors his, though her self-satisfied smile is unkinder. “Finn, what was the best sex in your entire life?”

“Did you think that would _bother_ me?” Finn laughs hard and discreetly covers more ground on the mattress. “Liz, you’re the one who willingly, thoroughly shagged your worst enemy two days after he tried to fire you because _you_ tried to fire _him_ out of selfishness and sheer incompetence, twice. I’ll freely admit that this was one of the best hours in my life. Meanwhile, you’re in denial about how good it was. How good _I_ was.”

It’s cruel. It’s true. Liz stares at him for a second, lips parted in appall, rage brimming behind glassy eyes. Then she turns around again without a word or a single change in her expression. Seconds pass, spent watching her breathe. He draws nearer, carefully, his own breath caught in his throat. If he could close the little remaining space between them, if he slotted himself against her and pulled her -  

She stands. The prolonged view of her arse fails to compensate for the sudden lack of warmth, the loss of touch. Finn sits upright and swallows his - disappointment? - before standing and retrieving his clothes.

They dress quietly.

“You’re right, Finn,” Liz says, putting on her trenchcoat, “that was the best sex I’ve had. Ever. It was so good that, after I’ve defeated you, I’m gonna dedicate all of my spare time to finding someone to fuck me even better than you did.”

Finn freezes. His smile, his blood. “You won’t defeat me. As for your second point...I doubt that’s possible.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, right?”

Liz slips her foot into her second heel, gives him a chilling once-over, and breezes out of the room. In her wake, Finn stares at the shirt clenched in his hand and realises that he’s only wearing his trousers - he’d been so distracted, trying to watch her.

The next time they meet, they’re both in black. Civil nods are exchanged. Words are not. When she tears up at the coffin, he procures a (clean) tissue and awkwardly hands it to her. Their hands brush, just the slightest graze; he needs to whip out his gum and chew furiously to slow his racing heart.

At the back of the church, they settle beside each other, shoulders touching, silent as the grave.


	5. Chapter 5

Liz presses her iPad’s screen against the glass wall, slams her fist nearby, and mouths, “What the fuck did you do?”

Finn shrugs. Oh, how she wants to smother that scummy smirk in more ways than one. She forcefully throws open the door (not as dramatically as she prefers, since it’s thick glass) and storms inside.

It’s late, late enough that they can yell at each other in a meeting room without worrying about upsetting their subordinates. Hypothetically, they could also fuck there. Hypothetically, she could set her phone to record, pare the audio down to his moaning, and post the file online as a rarely-heard mating sound of a dying breed.

“Finn,” she shouts, “what the _fuck_ did you do?”

“I explained your PCSO plan to a friend to see what they thought. We agreed that you needed a third opinion, such as all of London’s.”

Liz sets her iPad aside for now, her palms landing flat on the surface of the big table. Finn mirrors her stance at the opposite end. This late, the lighting is particularly unflattering on him: dark circles under his eyes, worry lines exacerbated, curls sticking to his forehead from sweat and product residue. She hates him, she hates him, she hates him so much, she wants to choke his cock with both hands and slap it till he cries.

“You’re gonna piss off half of the police force,” she spits. “That's a funny way to protect the public sector.”

“Liz, I am but the humble messenger for your shit-loaded nail bomb.”

“If you think it’s a fucking _bomb,_  why are you delivering it to people?”

Finn leans in further, teeth bared rather menacingly for a pasty weasel-hedgehog hybrid. “Because of my fucking integrity as a mailman!”

The analogy may be deteriorating, but the tension is not. Obviously, the situation calls for rapid hatefucking. He fumbles his wallet out of his pocket, fumbles a condom packet out of his wallet and, in a lust-induced cognitive haze, hands the packet to Liz.

She squints at the pink wrapper. “‘Strawberry-flavoured’?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Why did you think that’s necessary?” she marvels. “I know you associate addiction with gum, but I’m probably not going to chew on your dick for much longer after I finally bite it off.”

His scowl returns with a vengeance. “Look, it was this, apple-flavoured, or ultra XL.”

“And you thought this was the least questionable option?”

“I think it’s the one you’ll appreciate most if I make you _eat the condom_.”

That's a kink she hasn't heard of, but unsurprising if it’s true. Finn is a personified oil slick who likely brags about their encounters on Reddit. He simultaneously condescends to her and craves her attention; he fluctuates between proactive paranoia and smug apathy; and he’s insane enough to eagerly hook up with her while they’re trying to destroy each other’s careers.

He’s repulsive and noxious and  _perfect_. If only there was some metaphysical way to use his dick and hear his dirty talk without having to deal with the rest of him. On second thought, she'd add his fingers and tongue. And maybe his torso. Come to think of it, she’d be fine with regularly fucking Finn if he wasn’t fucking _Finn_.

A brilliant idea strikes Liz, as usual around this time of the evening. Convincing him is easier than expected.

Minutes later, she steps back to admire her handiwork: Finn seated in one of the chairs rotated away from the big table, the top buttons of his shirt undone and trousers pulled down to his ankles. His wrists are bound behind him with his necktie. The knot is tight. Implicitly, he trusts her in this sole area, unquestioningly believes that she won't leave him there overnight. That’s either surprisingly sweet or predictably stupid.

She straddles his lap, teasing his erection, rubbing the wet tip of his cock against her aching clit.

“I need to disinfect this chair tomorrow morning.” Well, he sounds more unhinged than the backdoor to her brain. “This whole room. I can’t resist you -” the tremble in his voice has her unbalanced, physically and mentally, until he continues, “- but sex is disgusting and we’re flooding the home of this grand institution with our bodily fluids and blatant disregard for professionalism.”

“You’re killing the mood,” she murmurs, and nips his earlobe in reproach. “That’s hot.”

Liz slides down with a small sigh, as if she’s leisurely sinking into a jacuzzi instead of onto him. Her teeth grit against the familiar stretch, toes curling in her heels. He fits so goddamn nicely, it's upsetting that the best cock she's ever ridden belongs to the worst person she knows.

“Disgusting,” he repeats. “Almost as disgusting as your policies. I’m surprised you have time to fuck me since you’re so preoccupied fucking the police force.”

“I’m surprised you have the energy left to be fucked after deepthroating your own dick.”

She rocks forward, back, forward, building to a steady rhythm, swiveling to hit the spots that knock the air out of her lungs and lodge it in her throat - better than Finn could in _any_ position, thank you very fucking much. He mutters something about flexibility and how his dick tastes like her, lets a tangent unravel from there. Retorts volley between them. She sucks his bottom lip, then the tip of his tongue. But the more determined she is to shut him up, the more incessantly he talks. Not once does it occur to her that she could stop answering.

“Let me know when the sex begins,” he quips.

“You do realise I’m doing all the work,” Liz complains between heavy breaths.

“I thought you liked being in control.” Finn wriggles, testing his binding. The shitty smirk reappears. “Or should I take more of it?”

She scoots the chair forward until its back hits the table, plants both hands on the surface, and practically bounces on his cock.

“Actually,” he groans, eyes glued to her sweat-shiny cleavage, “you’re welcome to keep it for the next half-hour.”

“Once again, you severely overestimate yourself.”

“When you challenged me, I went for six minutes longer than necessary.”

“You kept track? Nerd.” Liz kept track, too, but that’s not the point.

Anyway. Minor setback aside, victory is within reach. Little does Finn know that Liz doesn’t intend to fire him anymore: assuming he wouldn’t quit following Inglis’ defeat, she plans to turn the tables on him. Trotting him out to stand in the background during press conferences. Systematically fucking him up and down and across Scotland Yard, marking the territory as hers. (In a psychological sense, that is. Ick.) Designating him as the _entire department of Twitter Q &A's_. She’d humiliate him - not by mistreating him around others but by making him feel good when it’s the two of them alone, in the dark, where she can be herself. 

 _We tell the truth,_  she’d said, and he’d dismissed her, then poked leaky holes all over her plans.  _We’re playing the long game,_  and he’d scoffed, then subtly prolonged their conflict so he could relish her while destroying her. Now she's warping his need for control into uncontrollable need. She's taken him to the highest court of poetic justice, two of his favourite things, he'd better appreciate how artfully she wrecks him.

She slows to a stop despite her own insistent desire. He writhes beneath her, swearing, the struggle worsening as she licks and kisses the exposed bit of his chest.

"It's called delayed gratification,” Liz responds to his thrillingly intense glare. “Not rushing headlong into things. Not taking a running leap to conclusions."

“Oh. _Oh_ \- you're one to talk.” His laughter is strained. So is his tie, probably. “You jumped me that first time in your office.”

“You reacted so _sadly_ to a kiss on the cheek. I felt bad.”

“That doesn’t explain the subsequent times.”

“It's been an interesting month,” she admits.

“Twenty-five days. We began on the 29th,” Finn explains.

“Huh. Feels longer.” Liz purses her lips, suddenly feeling exposed. Emotionally - the worst kind. She’d rather be buck naked on a rooftop with a laser sight on her forehead than vulnerable in front of him. “Like how your dick felt bigger the last time it was in me.”

“You mean when I was on top and in charge?”

“Being on top doesn't mean you're in charge.” Unless she is. She sinks back down, slowly, so agonizingly slow that she nearly caves to the instinct to wildly rock against him, but he growls impatiently and she remembers that she’s punishing him. Herself. Someone.

“Maybe that also applies to titles,” he says.

“So maybe you should stop chasing mine.”

“I just want a position that matches my current role.” He exhales in half-satisfaction, half-exasperation. “Not sexually - you've already fucked me in every sense of the word.”

She traces his spine with two fingertips. “Not _every_ sense.”

Finn's cock twitches. Laughing at his wide-eyed reaction, she rolls her hips forward in a sharp thrust, and she can't disguise how her body involuntarily stutters, seeking a greater sense of fullness and pressure on her clit. Her breaths huff louder; he lifts his hips to meet hers on the downstroke. Rising, falling. Rising, falling. It’s not so hard, once you get used to it.

His teeth graze her jaw, then his lips are soft against where he nips, the closest to a genuine apology she'll ever extract from him. Heat flutters low in her belly.

“Finn,” she moans. The deep shudder running through him provides unexpected friction in addition to their urgent rutting and the traction of the chair. “ _Fuck_ yes.”

“Say that again,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Fuck yes?”

Finn snarls. Typical ungratefulness. His touch has been poison burning in her blood for days; voluntarily putting herself in his presence is a type of self-fuckery that’s so terrible, so cataclysmic, that it’s insanely good, literally insanely, driving her to the kind of madness that tempts her to savour every moment of it. So, she can bind his wrists. She can't control herself.

With tremendous restraint, she slows again, one hand pressing onto his lap. “Wait.”

“Don't stop,” Finn gasps, thrashing, “don't stop, fuck you, _fuck you,_ I need -”

Liz reaches behind him and undoes the knot of his tie.

His hands fly to her hair, to her shoulders, to her breasts, in a frantic attempt to compensate for the earlier lack of contact. He slips his fingers between them so he can thumb her clit. The extra sensation sends her into overdrive; she clings to him with a harsh cry, giddy, close to toppling from the blistering change of pace. Moans fill the air, and she has to admit that at least half of them are the ones she fails to swallow.

“You can fuck me on the table,” she suggests - yeah, that’s a thought, Finn pinning her with his entire body and exacting revenge or standing and fucking into her while her legs dangle off the edge. But he gnaws his lip and shakes his head vehemently. “Or I can - ”

“I won’t make it that far,” he pants.

 _Shit_. She grinds against him as hard as she can, fast, fast enough for her to forget where she is for a heartbeat that resounds in her head, fast enough to blur stormy past and shadowy future into the strikingly clear present. And she sees him and his heaving chest and blown pupils, she’s totally aware of who they are and where they are, and they belong right here and it's  _fucking fantastic,_  oh God she's coming and he'd better follow -

“Fuck you, Finn,” Liz growls, repeats his name raggedly while she tugs on his hair to steer him towards the same peak. Finn shouts when he hears her, grip tightening, staring straight into her eyes and babbling nonsense as he shakes and fills the condom.

Her mouth slackens against his parted lips until the tides of pleasure ebb for both of them, until he slips out with a groan. Her hand roams to find an acceptable place to land and settles on the top of his head.

“Your hair is fluffy,” she says absently, giving it an alarmingly gentle ruffle. “Why haven’t I noticed that before?”

He shifts beneath her, stifling another groan. “You tend to concentrate your attention elsewhere.”

It’s then that Liz registers their current position: she’s straddling Finn’s lap, her hands on his shoulders while his hands rest on her hips. She presses herself against him, just to feel his softening cock, just to crow at how much he still wants her, but she ends up bumping his forehead with hers and staying there.

Pulling back abruptly, she glimpses an expression so sad, so afraid, that it reminds her of how sad and afraid she _is_ \- how badly the wound will sting once the adrenaline wears off. Has she been trying to plug the growing void in her soul with dicks, metaphorical and literal? Chiefly, Finn and Finn’s? Jesus Christ.

It dawns on her that while she’s been looking at him, he’s been looking at her.

“You’re pretty,” he says quietly, more confession than realisation, too innocently for someone she’s just finished rage-fucking as stress relief. 

“Pretty what?” Liz prompts in an accusatory tone, withdrawing her hands as if his skin has started to burn hers.

Finn hesitates, conflict brewing in his eyes, and ultimately ignores her. He lowers his head until she can’t see his face anymore. When he raises it, his expression has reverted to its default disdain.

“All right,” he says. His hands leave her hips, fingers lifting a fraction of a second after his palms do. “I should rest up. I have to demolish your bad ideas tomorrow.”

“I think you'll be more tired by swinging a wrecking ball into your face at full force.” To illustrate her prediction, she picks up his rumpled tie and whacks it against his cheek.

He snatches the tie away. Cackling, Liz climbs off his lap, teetering on wobbly feet. The tied-up condom is shoved into her hand as he brushes past her without another glance.

“May the best woman win,” she says acidly, pulling on her jacket.

“Poor thing, in that case,” Finn clucks in reply, buttoning his shirt as he exits. “She’d have to work with the worst.”

That’s more like it. A firm re-declaration of total war. Fighting to the bitter end, no mercy or surrender, winner take all and loser slink off for a marathon session of angsty masturbation while fantasizing about what could've been. Career-wise.

The next day, whatever remained of his subtlety has doused itself in gasoline and, instead of lighting a match, jumped into a volcano. He slyly eye-fucks her in broad daylight throughout the morning meeting in the Head Commissioner's office. It almost makes her wish they'd sit together more often, purely so she could A) return the favour beneath the table, with her fingers and B) kick him when he deserves it, with both feet. 

In the control room, Liz smiles and stares at Finn's lips as he rants about her imaginary motives, remembering how she's kissed them, how she's bitten them red and slipped her tongue between them. His voice wavers considerably as he claims that she wants everyone to love her. Huh. 

“You're the best thing to happen to London since the plague!” is his final blow. She's noticed how his attacks have evolved from straightforward jabs to insinuations about her sex life to insults that start off sounding like compliments. Hell, he's halfway to weaving a giant straw shrine in her image and claiming it's a large voodoo doll. She'd sought power over the Met's PR department and ended up with a warped sort of power over _him_. 

Liz calls him a monster in all but name and she sees his heart crack.  

“A dinosaur,” she says, with an air of confirmation, “roaring at monkeys sailing by. On bikes. With iPads.”

He's so distraught, he doesn't care about the weakness of her closing statement. Doesn't see her steps falter as she walks off, belatedly swaying beneath the weight of his words. Fuck.  _Fuck_. 

Around noon, they locate a rarely-used toilet and stumble inside.

“Stall,” she commands, figuring Murphy's Law is in effect in every part of her life this week. Instead, she's slammed against the door, Finn's mouth briefly crushing against hers. He hoists her up and she locks her legs around him on instinct, runs her hands up and down his biceps so she has something to do with her hands besides the disturbing urge to frame his face with them. 

“What, where people shit?” he sneers. “I'm going to finger you on a sink like a gentleman.”

He sets her at the edge of the counter and wedges himself between her spread legs, Jesus, she would've pulled the rug out from under his morality earlier if she'd thought he'd had any and if she'd known it'd be such a turn-on for him. Liz has been eyed hungrily by other men - he ogles her fidgeting in his hold like he plans to devour her. That is, until he spots a bruise on her kneecap.

“Where did you get this?” he questions, rubbing the surrounding skin with his thumb. It's not arousing in the slightest, why the fuck does she shiver?

“Oh, you know.” She shrugs. “Probably that thing I bumped into that time we had sex.”

Finn’s frown is a variation she's never seen before. And here she'd thought she'd collected the whole set. Weird. Worrying. Several terrifying heartbeats later, it occurs to her that it might indicate _concern_. Her laughter bounces off the walls until it sounds hollow.

“Now’s a hell of a time to be considerate. I don’t mind,” Liz adds, as he begins to launch into an anxiety-fuelled tirade about rumours of the head of the PR department accepting kneecap hickeys. “Besides, I’m sure I left a few marks on you, too.”

That answer seems to satisfy him. “Picture it, Liz,” he purrs, voice like silk dragged over sandpaper. He tosses her panties onto the counter. “We could rule together.”

“Oh my God,” she groans, tilting her head upwards with eyes wrenched shut.

“Good?”

“No, you’re really a massive fucking nerd.”

“You understand my references and shag me on a regular basis, so what does that make you?”

“A charity worker.”

It _is_ good, though. Annoyingly so. Between strategic strokes and well-placed pinches, Finn makes his pitch: a relatively sane Commissioner; equal power and salvaged pride divided between them; the police force not imploding ingloriously thanks to their powder keg of mutual pettiness. Her panties would've been near-ruined.  _She_ feels...quarter-ruined. 

“And…” he licks his lips, and from what she can see, the inside of his mouth appears to be gum-free. Fucking hell, he really _is_ serious. “I’d be there.”

“I thought you were listing pros.”

“I’d be there in a _personal_ capacity.”

The sheer irony must be lost on him, the sexist idiot. “Finn, are you offering to put out?”

“I’m just saying,” God, how those fingers have improved in the past twenty-five days, it almost compensates for his piss-poor attitude, “there could be unofficial perks. Certain liberties. Morning briefings between us? After-hour spot checks on each other's offices?”

“I can’t believe it.” Liz laughs, partially from said disbelief, partially from the tickle of his stubble as he trails light kisses down the side of her neck. “You’re trying to seduce me.”

“It’s not so outlandish.”

“There are around three different ways you could approach this, and you chose the most time-consuming, exhausting, circumstance-dependent one.”

Finn delivers his counterpoints in a low voice into her ear. The word ‘circumstance’ should never be wielded that way.

“I stopped sleeping with the other guy,” Liz reveals as a cunning diversionary tactic, playing with his loosened tie. 

Hooking up with Granger wasn't _bad,_  really, or that boring - but it was like prolonged foreplay. Reliable distractions between workdays, where she'd lie down and be brought to a decent climax. Yesterday, Patrick was interested, handsome, near-civil, and only mildly obnoxious...someone who couldn’t give her what she wants. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she'd been saving her enthusiasm for her recalcitrant Deputy. Finn has become the orgasm of her sex life. That's terrible.

“Well, yeah.” Finn huffs. “I doubt even you would dig six feet and pry open a coffin to impale yourself on a decaying cock.”

Her hand drops. “...And now I'm regretting it.”

“Why? You can still do that. Your cooperation is more important than your cunt. I don’t need you all to myself, Liz.” As he says this, Finn’s fingernails dig deeper into her back, sharply, and God help her, she wants it harder, wants him deeper. Somewhere.  

“You just need me,” she concludes.

Glaring is his only defence. It's flimsy enough to fall apart when she locks her feet behind his ass and pulls him closer so he's pressed to her pelvis.

“If you agree -” he cups her chin, “- how can I trust you’ll follow through?”

She doesn’t know, herself, but her persuasive skills are impaired by how he grinds against her in slow circles. “I promise?”

“Based on precedent, I need something better than your word.”

“I can do it your way.” Liz takes his hand in hers. Unzips his trousers with her other hand. “If you show me how it goes.”

They don’t break eye contact as their hands work over him until he grunts her name, braces himself against the sink, and spills into their combined grip. He watches, bleary-eyed, as she gently wipes him clean with a paper towel of dubious age. She raises her hand to her mouth - and he grabs her wrist, sucks her fingers clean while guiding her hand to start touching herself over her skirt.

It takes her less than a minute to come on his slick, nimble fingers. (He keeps track. Nerd.)

“I don't like you,” she reminds him curtly once she's caught her breath, and licks herself off his skin. 

Liz is energized by confrontation and sex buzzing in her blood for the remainder of the afternoon. While waiting for Sharon’s interview to end, she texts Finn: _I’m handling it._

His reply arrives promptly: **Who are you shagging this time?**

She smirks and responds, _Your mother._

Hours later, they crash-land into the end of the day. The lights shut off before everyone's left the building; Liz trudges to the empty department floor alone to retrieve her handbag. Her feet ache, half-melted make-up tacky on her face, hair unruly beyond quick repair. She's in no state to be seen. It figures that a few steps down the hallway, Finn exits his office. 

He looks exhausted, slowing when he notices her, which prompts her to do the same. They meet in the middle and she isn't sure why. She reflects that his eyes are somehow the brightest they've ever been in this dark. 

Finn opens his mouth, immediately shuts it with a corner of his lips twitching in uncertainty. Liz opens her mouth, then bites her lips closed as she rakes her gaze over his face, nameless excitement mounting with each second that passes without words or physical contact. He carefully brushes her hair to one side. His hand remains where it is, fingers curling. She sees, _hears_  him gulp. 

Next thing she knows, she's staring at his back as he brisk-walks towards the lifts. A common sight, yeah, but now he's not storming off and it's not exactly retreat - it's like he's actually fleeing from her. 

 _Good night_ , Liz wants to call. She can't even squeak. 


	6. Chapter 6

“I’ve never done this before,” Finn murmurs.

“Come closer,” Liz says, clenching tightly; she tugs insistently when he hesitates too long. “And I don’t believe you.”

“Did you really assume that I’m the sort of person who even _thinks_ \- ” his tingling fingers twitch, curl, “ - for a second, about something like this?”

“I believe you’re the sort of person who’d do it without thinking.”

That’s how they got here, after all. He releases a shaky exhale, conscious of the heat trapped between them, the electric rub of bare skin on skin. Her follow-up squeeze is almost startling enough to make him forget his nervousness.

Almost.

“Liz,” Finn says hoarsely, “I’ve honestly never held hands with someone. Not this way, in this context.”

“How many other ways are there?” Liz questions. And swings his arm a bit to taunt him further. His stomach lurches. They might be walking at a steady pace, but he's also riding an emotional rollercoaster, except instead of a seatbelt his only security is a death grip on her fingers and that makes his stomach lurch even more and _shit_ , why did he agree to this, he's going to pass out from embarrassment if he throws up from anxiety. “Don’t tell me there’s a vanilla version of handholding.”

“Parents, childhood games,” he lists. The back of his neck pricks with sweat. “You get the idea.”

A car zooms past them, headlights reflecting bright against the wet asphalt. He resists the urge to bury his face deep in his coat.

“Do you like it?” Liz asks, as if he isn't being thoroughly punished enough as-is. Oh, God.

“Well...it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“I can vouch for that,” she says dryly.

“But if you expect me to do this when we go on a real - ”

Finn freezes. His tongue, his steps. Liz does, too. She doesn’t drop his hand, though she seems to forget that she’s still holding it as she rounds on him with eyes so wide the blue threatens to drown him.

“What? What?” she presses. “When we go on a _real date?”_

Fuck. “Uh.” 

“Did you just deliberately say ‘uh’?”

It’s probably safest not to answer.

“What was that, then?” Liz continues, voice rising a pitch in incredulity. “A friendly exchange of tongue at the back of a cinema?”

“I realised that wasn’t what I meant to say,” Finn points out testily, “so I stopped. I _meant_ an...outing that doesn’t take place in the near-dark and involves us focusing on something other than counting down the minutes till the next shag.”

Her lips quirk. So does her eyebrow, to a worrying degree. He hastens to continue walking; his escape attempt is hampered by how she allows herself to be tugged along. For fucking once, of all the fucking times. 

“My dad would've loved you.” The words are simultaneously wistful and uttered like a curse. “...As long as we never mentioned how we tried to fire each other and how you tried to blackmail me - ”

“- and how you almost broke London and how we were having whirlwind hatesex the entire time, which was under a month, sure.”

“We might be doing this in the wrong sequence,” she admits.

“Oh, so _now_ you care about order and convention.” Unconsciously, Finn squeezes her hand.

They’ve reached the thankfully-empty and unfortunately well-lit entrance to Liz’s building. Her hand slips from his without great urgency - he grabs her wrist before she can step away, pulls her back towards him before he knows what he's doing. The subsequent peck he plants on her cheek makes her blush, he’s certain; he'd tease her, if not for the fact that his face feels heated, as well. 

“Come upstairs?” she asks. Or, rather, suggests hopefully.

Finn's voice dips, roughens to a whisper so husky he swears it could pull a sled. “I can come anywhere you want.”

“Yeah?” Liz’s eyes sweep over him like searchlights, then her warm body is flush against his, and it’s as thrilling as the first night in the darkened office; it will be the most thrilling afterwards, when they’re lying together (in the casual fun way, not the work fun way, however often they may overlap), exhausted and drifting into sleep. “I can think of a few places.”

His expression hardens. Well, among other things. “Whether I _will_ is a different story.”

And, as usual, it only takes seconds of her well-placed touch to coax him into admitting that she occasionally has good ideas.


End file.
